


Funny

by kaydeefalls



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Community: slashababy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-25
Updated: 2003-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best jokes start simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funny

**Author's Note:**

> Slasha, baby pressie for Echo, who requested Billy/Dom, any genre. I hope this will do. Merry Christmas!

_A guy walked into a pub._

It's, like, the classic joke-starter, you know? How many jokes have you heard that start with some bloke walking into some pub? Unless you're American, of course, in which case the guy is walking into a bar. Which is stupid, really, because then you get a whole load of people who think the most hilarious joke in the world is "A guy walked into a bar. It hurt." Like Elijah, I've seen him fall out of his chair laughing at that one. No joke. I mean, yes joke, he was laughing at that joke, but seriously, he fell out of his chair. It was ridiculous, really. That's got to be the most pathetic joke in the world, and you'd think he'd never heard anything funnier. He's a bit touched in the head that way, you know?

But anyway. A guy walked into a pub. It's the essence of humor. Oh, sure, there are variations. Two guys walked into a pub. A Scotsman and an Englishman walked into a pub. Three armadillos walked into a pub. A minister, a priest, and a rabbi -- wait, never mind, that's a whole other breed of joke. But, yeah, the basic principle of guys walking into pubs stays the same.

It's funny, though. Odd funny, not ha-ha funny. 'Cause when you think about the phrase, "a guy walked into a pub," well, there's nothing particularly humorous about that. It's really bland, you know? Normal. Guys walk into pubs all the bloody time. It's what guys do.

You know what the funniest phrase in the world is? "Three penis aliens walked into a gazebo." No, honestly. Say that to someone. They'll laugh. I guarantee it.

In fact, it's so funny that the rest of the joke is doomed for failure, because nothing you could say to follow it up can be quite as hilarious as the mental image of three penis aliens walking into a gazebo. Maybe that's why the best jokes start simple. They give you something to build on.

*

A guy walked into a pub.

He sat down at the bar and ordered a pint of Guinness. Then he turned to the man at the stool next to him and deliberately smacked him in the back of the head.

"Ow!" Dom cried. "What the -- oh, it's you. What'd you do that for?"

"Because you're a stupid wanker," Billy said, not unkindly. "And not the least because it's taken me the better part of an hour to find you."

Dom glared at him, rubbing his injured head affrontedly. "You still didn't have to--"

"Yes, Dominic, I did." Billy took a sip of his beer. "What the hell were you thinking, anyway?"

"I wasn't," Dom muttered.

"Obviously."

"Look, it's not that big a deal--"

Billy stared at him. "You called Elijah a cross-eyed, freakish, uneducated git and told him in intimate detail exactly how he could go fuck himself."

Dom's ears started turning pink. "Yeah..."

"And you tried to throw a clock at him."

"But I didn't!"

"Only because you couldn't figure out how to unplug it. And what was that bit about the purple gazebo?"

Dom covered his face with his hands. "Never mind," he mumbled.

Billy shook his head. "And then you stormed off and it took me almost an hour to track you down. And this isn't that big a deal?"

"Look," Dom said, clutching at his own (empty) pint glass, "I've had a tree branch up my arse all day. Can't we just leave it at that?"

"So have I," Billy replied, "but you don't see me throwing clocks at my castmates."

"Bugger off, Billy."

Billy smiled gently. "Sorry, Dom, but I won't. Not until you tell me what the hell is going on between you and Elijah."

"Nothing," Dom snapped. He jumped up, then grabbed at the bar, swaying slightly. His face went pale. "Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick."

Billy sighed. "You've been here for an hour, at most. How much could you have had?"

"I don't know..."

"Bloody lightweight."

Dom glared at him. "It's not wise to insult a bloke who may or may not be ill all over your lap in the next thirty seconds."

"Dom, I've known you for almost a year now. I've seen you drink yourself into a stupor on many occasions, and you pass through several distinct phases of drunkenness before you reach the puking point. At the moment, you aren't even at the slurred-speech phase. You're a long way from being sick just yet."

"I was dizzy for a moment, though," Dom grumbled.

"That's because you stood up too quickly."

"Oh, sod off, Billy."

"Elijah's shagging PJ's assistant, you know," Billy said unexpectedly. "The skinny one with the big tits."

Dom blinked eloquently.

"Does that have anything to do with the near clock-throwing incident?"

"No," Dom said.

Billy raised an eyebrow. "Really. So which of them did you fancy, Dom?"

Dom shook his head. "Neither. Honestly."

"I think you'd better have another pint, Dommie." Billy gestured to the abandoned barstool.

"Yeah," Dom said, defeated. He sat back down (not too quickly, this time). "You're still wrong, though."

"Am I?"

"Look," Dom said severely, "you missed the beginning of the argument, so you're in no place to tell me that I overreacted."

Billy leaned an elbow on the bar, propping his chin up with his knuckles. "You did, though."

"You didn't hear what he was saying!"

"What was he saying?"

"Um." Dom's ears turned an interesting shade of pink. Mauve, Billy decided. "Never mind."

"Come on, it must have been good, tell me."

Dom glared at him. "Why so curious, Billy?"

Billy grinned. "Anything that turns your ears mauve _has_ to be good."

"My what _what_?" Dom demanded, clapping his hands over his ears. He stared at Billy for a second, then shook his head slowly, starting to smile in spite of himself. "Funny," he said. "That's really funny, Billy."

*

 _How many actors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?_

Just one. Actors can screw anything. OR, one to hold the lightbulb, and the rest of the world revolves around him. OR, that depends. How many would PR like it to take?

That's the beauty of lightbulb jokes. The variations are endless, and any given punchline can be twisted to fit a number of different how-manys. It's such a wonderfully flexible sort of joke, and once you get started, you can go on telling them for ten, fifteen minutes at a stretch. Hell, if you've got the right audience, you can just start making new ones up as you go along, and no one will even notice. Once in Feet, I really pissed off the makeup people because they were laughing so hard they couldn't aim the airbrush properly and they did a really sloppy job of it. That takes talent, though. Not every average Joe off the street could pull off a lightbulb roll like that.

You know what else is great about lightbulb jokes? They're really bloody short. In, out, humor, bam! Within a few seconds, you already know whether to laugh, groan, or punch the teller in the face -- 'cause hey, if it winds up being a bad joke, at least it's over fast.

And there's nothing worse than a ridiculously long build-up followed by a punchline that just isn't funny.

*

How many actors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Two, apparently. One to screw it in, and the other to stand around and try to look busy. The truth is rarely particularly funny.

"Honestly, Dom," Billy grumbled, twisting the new bulb into place, "you're absolutely useless around the house."

Dom shrugged, leaning against the wall. "I do all right, mostly. Just never been good with changing bulbs and suchlike." He neglected to add that the ceiling fan in his living room was broken, too. It wasn't that he had an aversion to heights or anything, just that appliances stuck to the ceiling weren't supposed to have problems. He could get up to them easily enough, but the whole fiddling around with electric stuff in midair bit didn't particularly appeal to him.

Billy snorted disdainfully. "Useless." He glanced down. "Hey, you're supposed to be holding the ladder!"

"Right, sorry."

"I might've fallen off and died of a broken neck, and it would have all been your fault." Billy sniffed and adjusted the light fixture around the bulb.

Dom resisted the urge to give the ladder a little shake. "Oi, come on, you're barely two meters up."

"Shut up, you." Billy gave the light a final tug, then carefully made his way back down. He smirked at Dom. "Admit it, you just wanted me up there so you could check out my arse."

"Ugh, not bloody likely," Dom said, wrinkling his nose in mock disgust. "Where's the old bulb?"

Billy rolled his eyes, then nodded at the floor under the ladder. "Right where you dropped it, you lazy git."

"Oh. Yeah." Dom bent over to retrieve it.

"Are you and Elijah speaking yet?" Billy asked out of the blue, too casually.

Dom stood up too quickly and nearly bashed his head on the underside of the ladder. "Not exactly, no."

Billy crossed his arms and gave him a stern look. "It's been nearly three days. This is getting ridiculous."

Dom clenched the dead lightbulb in his hand, not quite willing the smooth glass to break. He tried to swallow back a completely irrational wave of irritation. "Yeah, well, shit happens."

"You're acting like children," Billy said, exasperated. "I still don't even know what set off this round of hostilities!"

"Elijah -- oh, forget it, it doesn't matter."

Billy shook his head and closed up the ladder, leaning it against the wall. "You two and your lovers' quarrels," he said mildly.

"For christ's sake, why does everyone think I fancy Elijah?" Dom demanded, annoyance flaring into anger. "Most of the time, he's not even bent!"

Billy grinned at the show of temper. "Who do you fancy, then, if not our lovely Lij?" he teased.

Without thinking -- "You," Dom said.

Billy stared at him for a second, then abruptly burst out laughing. "Ah, that's a good one, Dommie!"

"Goddamnit!" Dom shouted. "Why don't any of you ever take me seriously? 'Good old Dom, he's such a joker, everything he says is for a laugh.'"

Billy stopped laughing. "Dom..."

"You're just like Elijah, you know that?" Dom fumed, on a roll. "You don't mind me as long as I'm the clown of the group, but as soon as I try to say something serious and honest, you brush me off!"

"Hey, Dom, calm down--"

"Shut up, Billy," Dom said coldly, not looking at him. "Do me a favor, okay? Get out of my house and stop pestering me about my little spat with Elijah. Why don't you ask him what started it? Just, please, leave me alone."

Billy backed away, staring at him. "Dominic--"

"Please."

Billy lifted his hands defensively, then let them drop to his sides. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay." He turned and left, shutting the door behind him quietly.

When Dom heard his car pulling away, he swallowed hard. He stared at the lightbulb in his hand for a second, then threw it at the wall as hard as he could. The bulb shattered, pieces of glass exploding onto the floor. He laughed, a short, harsh sound. "Funny," he said bitterly. "Really fucking funny."

*

 _Knock, knock._

Who's there?

It doesn't matter, really, because in my experience, knock-knock jokes are almost never funny. At best, they're absolutely atrocious puns. At worst, they're just... well, stupid. No self-respecting clown tells knock-knock jokes, and I like to pretend I've got at least that much dignity left.

Once in a blue moon, though, you come across a truly good knock-knock joke. It takes a second to hit you properly, for the delicious play on words to sink in, and then your laugh is more surprised reflex than genuine humor.

Those jokes are to be savored.

*

Knock, knock.

Dom glared at his trailer door. "What?"

The door opened a crack, enough for Dom to see Elijah's wide blue eyes peering in. "Dom?"

"Oh. It's you. What do you want?"

Elijah pushed the door open further and slipped in. Frodo was having a particularly unpleasant day in Mordor, judging by the tattered state of Elijah's costume and the artistic smudges all over his face. "Look, Billy's right. This is stupid. I still don't know exactly what I said or did to set you off, but I'll apologize if you do."

Dom was tempted to kick him out, but yeah, that would have been pathetically childish. "Yeah, all right," he sighed, scratching at a bit of glue behind his ear. "I'm sorry I almost threw a clock at you."

"Fair enough. Whatever I did, I'm sorry."

Without warning, Billy jumped into the trailer. He beamed at the two of them. "Right, now kiss and make up!"

"You set Lij up to this!" Dom accused.

The Pippin costume made Billy look younger and even more mischievous than usual. "That I did."

Dom tried to maintain his righteous indignation, but his bad mood was evaporating. Instead, he gave Elijah a determined leer. "So, he says we should kiss and make up, eh Lij?" He raised an eyebrow and licked his lips deliberately.

"Augh!" Elijah shrieked in a most unmanly fashion. His eyes went wider than usual. "Stay away from me!"

Dom's voice went husky. "But I want to apologize... _properly_."

Elijah darted out of the trailer, slamming the door shut behind him.

Dom smiled, satisfied. He glanced over at Billy, who was looking at him oddly. "What?"

"I thought you wanted us to take you seriously, Dom."

Dom blinked at him. "Well, yeah, but not all the time."

"And yesterday?" Billy persisted. "When you said...were you serious then?"

"Er, yeah, but look, I was overreacting, I dunno, not enough sleep the night before or something, and sitting in that fucking tree all day to come home to a burst bulb, and Elijah, and you, and...ah, forget it."

"Right," Billy said. "Will do."

Dom wasn't sure whether to be relieved or dismayed, but he shrugged it off. "Good."

Billy perched on the edge of a chair, eyes unreadable. His voice was casual enough, though. "Tomorrow's Saturday. Day off. So, any plans for tonight?"

"Eh," Dom said, flicking invisible lint off his jacket. "I'll probably find a pub, as usual. Get pissed. Go home with some faceless bloke and get off properly, for a change."

"Change of plans," Billy said, and before Dom realized what was happening, Billy had him shoved up against a wall and was kissing him fiercely.

Once Dom sorted out his confusion enough to respond -- whoa, tongue, nice -- he broke the kiss and pushed Billy away slightly. "What the hell?" he demanded.

Billy grinned, completely unapologetic. "I thought about it for a while, and I've decided to take you seriously."

"Oh," Dom said. He blinked, then started to smile. "Well, that's all right, then."

The next kiss went on for a bit longer. Eventually Dom pulled back. He stared at Billy for a second, then let out a short laugh.

"Funny," he said in wonder.

"What?" Billy asked, breath hot against Dom's lips.

"I don't know," Dom murmured. He smiled softly. "It just struck me as funny."

*

 _A guy walked into a pub._

Poor bloke. Doesn't he have anything better to do than sit in a pub alone on a Friday night?


End file.
